I was tired of seeing the same faces in my feed, often predominantly male - as I'm in the B2B tech space. And so posted a simple question on LinkedIn:
The thread took off and many folks shared new-to-me profiles of women building businesses, leading teams, making a dent in the world.
One comment came from community strategist and Founder/CEO at Chief Evangelist Consulting: Leslie Greenwood.
Leslie shared a similar post that she'd made nearly a year prior - asking which women CEOs that she should follow:
Leslie's post had *blown up* and led to her creating an entire spreadsheet filled with the names of female CEOs across a diverse set of industries and interests. Leslie recorded the names of anyone tagged or recommended and had been building this incredible resource for nearly a year when I made my post.
As extroverted connectors, we decided to meet over Zoom and get to know each other. And in that one simple meeting:
We commiserated about our common struggle to build a more diverse LinkedIn feed.
We shared a desire to build a common resource for anyone who asked a question similar to the one we asked: How can I get more women leaders in my feed?
We agreed it would be powerful to *do* something with the list of amazing executive leaders.
We acknowledged that we each were inspired to take action... but had very little extra time, beyond our work and families.
Wanting to take action, but in a way that we could maintain consistently given our bandwidth, we agreed to do something simple, yet meaningful. And so the fire was lit and the Wednesday Women initiative was begun.
Every week, we post carousels that feature one or two incredible women leaders and their answers to questions that reflect our mission:
What do you post about on LinkedIn? (More women in your LinkedIn Feed)
What would your TED Talk be on? (More women speaking - on stages, panels, and podcasts)
What advice would you give to someone early in her career? (More women sharing their authentic journey)
Here's an example of one of the first featured posts:
Our effort began small... but our mission is big:
To increase visibility and provide value for outstanding women executives, without demanding more of their limited bandwidth. Our efforts are designed to increase, for featured and nominated Wednesday Woman: social follower count and speaking engagements (keynotes, panels, and podcasts).
Follow along on LinkedIn for more – and use the hashtag #WednesdayWomen wherever extraordinary women executives are being celebrated.